Oil-shale is still considered by many as a major transition energy source which will someday be needed as a bridge between the petroleum era and the potentially unlimited energy sources of the future, such as solar power and nuclear fusion. As a result, much work is still being done to provide economical methods of converting the organic material of oil-shale to valuable liquid and gaseous products. Although many conversion schemes have been developed over the years for obtaining useful liquids from oil-shale, the presence of arsenic in oil-shale liquids is very deleterious because it poses a serious environmental problem and is a catalyst poison upon subsequent utilization of these liquids.
Most conventional methods developed for dealing with this arsenic problem treat the arsenic-containing oil after conversion as opposed to treating the oil-shale before conversion.
Consequently, there is a need in the art for methods of treating oil-shale, prior to conversion, so that upon conversion liquids and gaseous products are produced which are substantially free of arsenic.